Page:Further India; (IA furtherindia00clif).pdf/239

 purposes, Bassak may be described as the most distant trade-centre in the Mekong valley which traffics with the districts of the delta. It is, and always has been, the dream of the French colonial authorities to divert the trade of the Hinterland in such a manner that it may be made to flow through the possessions of France, and Saigon having come, through fortuitous circumstances rather than by design, to occupy the position of capital of Indo-China, it has been thought that commerce should be forced to pass through that town. The oppressive custom-dues formerly exacted by Kambodia and the conquest of Laos by Siam may both have contributed to the selection of the overland in preference to the river- route, but apart from political considerations, the question is in the main one of convenience and cheapness. The bulk and value of the trade involved are not great, and it has been found that goods can be conveyed to Korat and Bangkok with less trouble than to the coast of the China Sea. The long and tedious return-journey against the current is a labour that cannot be lightly faced, and it may be predicted with some degree of certainty that Saigon will never be the recipient of the bulk of the trade ex- ported from the interior.

At the present time Bangkok and Korat are already joined by a railroad, and the French are negotiating for the extension of this work eastward from Korat, whence it would pass almost due east to Hue, crossing the Mekong at Kamarat, and eventually finding the sea at Turon. The country between Kamarat and Hue is mountainous, and the construction of this section would be excessively